


Blue Lips

by ambivalentlangst



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Bad Ending, Hurt and comfort, M/M, Shiro has PTSD, if you're sensitive to triggering content I would not really recommend this, lance loves shiro sm, shance, shiro loves Lance sm, they sing a fun song, v sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 10:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13211853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentlangst/pseuds/ambivalentlangst
Summary: Shiro loves Lance, and Lance loves Shiro. Lance will do anything to make him feel safe, and so he sings him a song of blue even when he's painted red.





	Blue Lips

**Author's Note:**

> For [@kyo-chan-senpai](https://tmblr.co/mS_E0fyvh7odL317y9_LmlA) who requested: “Lance and Shiro go on a mission together or smth and one of them gets badly hurt and the other sings them Blue Lips (by regina Spektor bc this song is giving me immense langsty feels rn) to take their attention away from the wounds until they can get help. You can either kill off the wounded, or not. It’s your choice. Bonus points if you can make me bawl like a kid whose candy has been stolen.”

   Shiro didn’t know how everything had gotten so awful so quickly. Of course he knew that saving the universe was dangerous, it was a hazard to even be in space. He knew that they could very well die without ever returning home and there would be no funeral but their bodies fed to the abyss of space. It was a harsh reality, but they were lucky. He was lucky. It never mattered, for too long anyways, that he woke up in a cold sweat, screaming because he could see all the faces of those he’d killed swimming in front of his eyes. He had a svelte shape at his side that could murmur sweet nothings into his ear, could card long fingers through his hair while he squeezed his hand and proclaimed his love. Lance kept him safe from the terrors snapping at his heels away from the fire of battle, but Shiro had failed at keeping him safe even in it.

   He hadn’t seen the shot until it was too late, until Lance was diving in front of him in a blur of blue and white and then red. So much red. Shiro remembered screaming, and then he was at Lance’s side after tearing through the remaining attackers in a blaze of purple light and screaming directions for extraction into the comms even he barely understood. He clasped him to his chest with such tenderness his hands shook, and Lance had the nerve to arrange his blood stained, wobbling lips into a smile. 

   “It’s okay,” he whispered, but that was followed by a wet cough that left crimson puddle on the ground he turned to as a reaction. Shiro could do nothing but hold him, memories flashing behind his eyes so much faster then he could handle, and he realized he had new fuel for nightmares. One last innocent life lost because of him, but this time he would have no lover to comfort him and bring him back to reality. He vaguely could register Lance clinging to him, and then nudging him a little with the heel of his palm.

   “Hey, hey Shiro d-do you remember that song?” he asked. Shiro could only stare, because all he could see was red. Lance was not red. His lion was, his gun was, but Lance was not red. He never should’ve been red. Lance laughed, a pitiful sound that made Shiro tighten his grip on Lance, like if he clung to him tight enough he would keep him anchored in this world and away from the next. When Shiro couldn’t manage a response, Lance hummed softly and sat up to place a shaky kiss on Shiro’s cheek.

   “You know, the one I told you about. We use it sometimes, when your nightmares are too bad and we can’t go back to sleep. You remember that, don’t you?” Shiro could only shake his head, a fumbling stream of Lance’s name falling from his lips. All he could see was how wet and red the wound puncturing Lance’s beautiful skin was. His skin feathered and easy to tear, like it would take no more effort than ripping tissue paper. Even as frail as he was, Lance set his pain aside and did his best to reassure, Shiro

   “Come on, let’s sing,” he suggested calmly, and his trembling thumb ghosted across the white of Shiro’s knuckles. Lance’s voice was strained with the all encompassing agony that relentlessly lit his body up, but it carried the tune well enough even with gaps in the song.

 _“He stumbled into faith and thought,”_ he began, coughing again while Shiro stared at him with an expression containing such torment that it made him falter before he could bring himself to continue. Shiro’s arms were still strong around him, the only part of him that didn’t crumble under the circumstances. 

  _“God this is all there is.”_ Shiro could not understand, not while he tried to separate the present from the horrors of his past.

  _“The pictures in his mind rose, and began to breathe.”_ A sickening stain was growing on Shiro’s armor, viscous and sticky and with a coppery stench that burned Shiro’s nose. Lance interrupted his own performance for a moment, shaking Shiro’s shoulder with absolutely pathetic force. It was still enough to jar him.

   “Sing, darling. Just like we always do. It’s just us, nothing from before. Focus on me, okay?” Shiro was able to nod, his chin dropping in a motion jerky enough to send a jolt through Lance and create a grimace on his beautiful features. Again, Lance’s voice rose in a rasp, taut from the torture of his last few living moments.

  _“And all the gods in all the worlds, began colliding on a backdrop of blue.”_ Shiro’s lips moved but no sound came out. His tongue felt too fuzzy and heavy, trapped within his mouth. He could only focus on the blue, blissful blue of Lance’s eyes while his smaller lover’s hand stroked his own soothingly.

  _“Blue lips, blue veins.”_ Shiro finally managed a burst of sound, a croak that just barely fought past his shock and overwhelming panic to make itself heard. Lance smiled, thin and fake while tears gathered in his eyes. Shiro felt the same wetness on his cheeks, falling to bead unceremoniously on Lance’s tan skin.

   “Good,” Lance praised him lovingly. “That’s it, again. You’re okay. You’re fine. I’m here.”

    _“Blue lips, blue veins,”_ they chorused, Lance’s voice somehow less tremulous then Shiro’s. The black paladin always tried so hard to pretend he was fine, but Lance knew better, and his overpowering urge to protect Shiro above all else made him strong for just a little longer.

    _“Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away._ ” Shiro was gaining in volume now, zeroing in on the subtle weight of Lance in his arms and the rhythm of his touch. Lance kept him grounded.

  _“Blue, the most human color.”_ Lance was fading, losing his fervor as Shiro gained his stability again. They sang again and again, forgetting themselves and everything else in the highs and lows and lyrics that they both knew so well. 

  _“Blue lips.”_ It was just Shiro now, crooning to Lance who could only smile and let the morbid lullaby lure him to a much more permanent sleep.

 _“Blue veins.”_ Lance only barely kept his eyes open. He wanted Shiro’s face, scarred and kind and loving to be his last memory.

_“Blue, the color of the planet from far, far away.”_

   Lance’s eyes clouded over, and he fell still.

   The team arrived too late. By the time they burst in, all there was to be salvaged was a broken man who sang his love to a corpse painted in a color that most definitely wasn’t blue.


End file.
